


Drinking Games

by stanchezsloppyseconds



Category: Gravity Falls, Rick and Morty
Genre: Acrophobia, Alcohol, Arachnophobia, Athazagoraphobia, Drinking, M/M, Phobias, Scopophobia, Thanatophobia, uuhhh... whatever you call rick's aversion to cobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9774161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stanchezsloppyseconds/pseuds/stanchezsloppyseconds
Summary: Ford joins Stan and Rick in a game of drinking away your fears with friends. What started out as harmless teasing comfort about minor phobias eventually gives way to confessions of deeper secretes. This one’s a hurt/comfort fic. TW for alcohol, discussion of multiple phobias, and crying drunk old men.





	

Ford wasn’t sure why he’d let them talk him into this. He hadn’t had a drink in months and knew it was likely a bad idea to agree to joining a drinking game when Rick Sanchez was involved, but then again that brandy Stan had offered was one of his old favourites, and the cold autumn night air made the warmth of drinking with some company seem more enticing.

“Alright, so how’s this game of yours work?” Ford asked as he let the burn of his first sip settle in his throat and took a seat on the back porch next to his brother and his likely already drunk companion.

“You name something you’re afraid of.” Stan answered with a dark chuckle.

“Aan-and then,” Rick interjected with a crooked smile, “we all have a go at-at how stupid that thing is till y-you agree it’s a stupid thing to be afraid of.”

“Then we cheers to banishing that fear for the night.” Stan finished raising his glass in example and taking a drink. “We keep going till we’re completely fearless, and most likely wasted.”

“Alright, that sounds simple enough.” Ford shrugged as he silently counted the list of things that frightened him, “Who starts?”

“Stanley here just fessed up to his age old fear of heights.” Rick said with a scoff.

“I thought Mabel cured that?” Stanford asked with a concerned glance at his brother.

“Ehhh, mostly. Then Rick reminded me of how terrible his spacecraft driving is.” Stan laughed as Rick elbowed him.

“With h-how aaw-awful you drive, it’s a miracle I don’t have motorphobia.” Rick retorted dryly.

“Nah, that’s make too much sense to scare you” Stan snickered, “You should tell Ford about your cob phobia.”

“He’s afraid of cobs? …Like corn cobs?” Ford asked trying to hold back his own laughter.

“We haaaa-have already have banished that fear for-for the night and I refuse to acknow-knowledge its existence” Rick announced with a large swing of his flask. “It’s your ta-turn Sixer.”

“Something I’m afraid of?” Ford pondered for a moment, weighing what would be the easiest to confess to. “I suppose I have mild scopophobia.”

“Scoop-a-whatia?” Stan coughed as he tripped over the word. The one thing about playing this game with nerds was they always knew all the fancy names for all their fears.

“Scopophobia, it’s a fear of being watched or stared at.” Ford explained.

“Oh, then yeah, you definitely got that” Stan muttered shaking his head ‘I’m pretty sure you nearly killed me over that ‘mild’ fear with a crossbow pointed at my face when I showed up on your doorstep all those years ago.”

“That was different. I was worried you might have been- I couldn’t be sure you weren’t just Bill trying to trick me.” Ford protested with a frown.

“Don’t sup-suppose the scopophobia would have started due to a certain one eyed d-demonic nacho chip?” Rick pointed out.

“How do you even know what Bill looks like?” Ford asked suspiciously as he narrowed his eyes at Rick.

“What? You think I-I haven’t taken a piss on that statue out in the woods of that triangular prick Stanley fucking gave up his memories to get rid of?” Rick looked almost insulted, “Point-point is, the source a-of your phobia is long gone, so you can-can –urp- relax and stop thinking the dollar bill is watching you.”

“Yes, I suppose you are right.” Ford sighed before taking a long hard swig of brandy to absolve his fears.

“Cheers to not worrying wh-who’s watching! Righto Stanley, it’s your turn again!” Rick declared as he too took a drink.

“Uhm.. I guess, spiders? That’s ah- arachnophobia right?” Stan confessed with a shrug.

“Re-really? You never use-used to be scared of spiders. What’d I miss?”

“It was Darlene, wasn’t it?” Ford asked with a knowing glance.

“Er- yes actually. How’d you hear about her? The kids tell you?” Stan didn’t seem overly surprised that Ford would know. Dipper likely told Ford about everything paranormal he’d ever seen.

“I had a run in with her back in my early days of studying the region of Gravity Falls.” Ford pushed his glasses back up as they started to slip off his blushing face.

“Okay who the fuck’s Darlene?” Rick impatiently barked the question, feeling a bit left out of the conversation.

“She’s an Arachnimorph who runs a tourist trap a couple towns over.” Ford explained, “She lures men who are gullible enough to fall for her flirtatious behavior back to her lair to eat them.”

“Yep- poor gullible bastards. Wouldn’t know a thing about that myself. Just a rival tourist trap owner. Not like I er ever fell for any lines about liking my shoulder hair or anything- I mean that would just be stupid right?”

“Oh shit- you-you totally wanted to fuck a spider!” Rick was howling as he keeled over with laughter.

“Stanley, surely you didn’t-” Ford balked. Darlene’s passes had been about as effective on him as oil was effective at mixing in a tall glass of water. To be honest, Ford had not even realized that she’d been trying to flirt until she’d furiously told him so after capturing him. He’d never been all that good at picking up on those sorts of things even when they were sincere, let alone when it was coming from a giant she-spider as part of a cheesy act to get him to come back to her cave. Stanley on the other hand…

“What? No! I just might have kissed her. When she looked normal! Not when she turned into a giant hideous spider beast thing.”

“Well presumably, yes. Kissing her mandibles would have been significantly more difficult.” Ford stated very mater-of-factly.

“Ya-you know Lee, if eeh-eight legs is more your thing I know a-a gorrcorrian who’d be up for a threeway” Rick teased as he regained his breath for a moment before dissolving into a fit of laughter again.

“I do not like spiders!” Stan insisted with a shiver. Just thinking about it made his skin crawl with the memory of the feeling of spider legs scurrying all over him.

“Don’t worry babe.”  Rick cooed as his lanky arm slung around Stan’s broad shoulders, “I’ll squish ‘em with a real big shh-shoe if they try to get near you.”

“Yeah. You might want your raygun for the big ones.” Stan chuckled as he raised his glass. “Goodbye to creepy crawlies. They can’t get me tonight!”

They continued to pour more brandy in each other’s glasses while trading tales of adventures gone awry that had left behind lingering fears. Each new confession put to rest by the warmth of company and laughter, until eventually they had spent all the easy to share stories.

“Shit. I’m out of an-answers.” Rick cursed bitterly.

“Nah, that just means you ran out of the small stuff” Stan replied knowingly, “Common, you know the rules, Sanchez. We keep going till we’ve gotten over every damn fear in the books, or till we’re too drunk to speak coherently anymore. I know you ain’t hit your booze limit yet- so time to start spilling the bigger stuff.”

“Fuck. Alright. L-let me get something a bit harder to drink first.” Rick spat as he got to his feet, teetering slightly as he found his balance before firing his portal gun and vanishing for a moment. He returned almost instantly with a bottle of dark blue liquid that seemed almost black in the moonlight. Uncorking the alien bottle of liquor, Rick sat back down and took a heavy swig. Ford silently glanced at his brother but Stan didn’t seem overly concerned. They’d hit the part of the game that was always harder. As such, it usually called for getting right properly shit faced in order to get through it. Rick passed the bottle around before continuing. Stan knocked back a decent slug of it before handing it off to Ford, who sniffed it curiously before taking a taste. It reminded him of something he’d once had during his years stuck on the other side of the portal. The drink was thick and had a bitter citric and licorice flavour with the potency of rocket engine fuel.

“Death” The word hung heavy in the air for a moment.

“That’s a perfectly natural fear. Almost any living thing has the instinct to avoid death.” Ford broke the silence with his usual logical way of answering away a problem.

“Waasn’t finished” Rick growled before adding, “It’s na-not the me dying part that really scares me. I’m fine with that. I stop existing. Woop de fucking do. It’s what y-you lot will do without me tha- that scares me shitless.”

Stan reached out and squeezed Rick’s hand in his.

“Just er- pr-promise you won’t wallow your way in-into your own grave or some shiiit, kay?” Rick scoffed before taking the bottle back from Ford and raising it in a toast, “And don-don’t just forget me either. We already did that once. Don’t need you going and doing it when I won’t be here to remind you ba-a-about what a pain in your ass I-I was.”

“Yes, my brother related athazagoraphobia seconds that notion.” Ford said solemnly as he raised his glass of brandy.        

“Hey, you two geniuses cured my memory problems! Or do you both need a dose of anti-dementia meds to help you remember that?” Although Stan was laughing about it, he too took a small sip of his drink in honour of not worrying about forgetting or being forgotten.

“Alright boys- I dropped a-a-a big one, n-now it’s your turns!” Rick shouted to break the sullen silence that had settled in between them all.

“Sometimes I worry I’m going wake up and it will all have been a dream and I’m still on the other side of the portal. Or still trapped and being tortured by Bill.” Ford said with a heavy sigh as he unloaded the fear like it was a gun he’d been clinging to for too long.

“Eeh, they may not be as ov-obvious as Zigerions, but even dream demons can’t keep up a-a fake world of th-this scope for this la-long without you noticing something’s off.” Rick said with a shrug.

“True, but where other than my nightmares would I have wound up with Rick Sanchez dating my brother?” Ford teased with a smile.

“Hardy har” Stan chimed in as Rick tapped his bottle of alien liquor to Ford’s Brandy snifter in cheers to not worrying if life is a simulation or not.

“That just leaves -heec- you Stanley.” Ford said with a slight hiccup.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Stan sighed as he glanced down at his brandy, swirling the basin of the glass softly in his palm. “Look it’s- it’s dumb, and it’s getting late. We could just call it a night.”

“What, t-too chicken to admit wa-what kind of chicken you are?” Rick clucked mockingly as he playfully gave Stan a shove.  

“It’s alright Stanley, it’s not like there’s anything you could say that would make us think less of you.” Ford softly comforted as he put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“But that’s exactly part of the problem!” Stan laughed hollowly as he let the confession of his deepest fear spill out, “I’m scared someday everyone’s gonna realize that the longest con I’ve ever pulled is getting you all to think you love me when really I’m just as worthless as all the other junk I’ve been selling to shmucks my whole life.”

He’d expected contemptuous laughter. Or maybe even for his fears to prove he’d had every reason to be afraid now that he’d pulled back that veil of the perfect painted person he sometimes felt they all were looking at instead of the revolting reality of who he really was. Instead, he opened teary eyes that he hadn’t even noticed he’d scrunched shut in wide surprise as he was scooped up in a double hug from two of the most important men in his life.

“Wa- one-one man’s trash, a-another man’s treasure” Rick muttered gently with a sniffle as he held tight onto Stan.

“The biggest con you’ve ever pulled Stanley, is the one where you somehow managed to convince yourself that you aren’t the most valuable person in our lives.” Ford added with tears of his own.

“Fucking hell.” Stan chuckled, “We are all drunk.”

“That’s the- the point of-fa-of-a drinking game.”

“To drink until we’re reduced to a pile of crying old men?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Oh good. Then I think we did it properly.”


End file.
